I had to give up my job as a general surgeon because of my eczema.

Christine was a successful surgeon until her career was ruined by eczema. She tells how a natural vine helped her overcome the problem.

BYDr Christine Hubbard 3 July, 2007

Dr Christine Hubbard is a 55- year old retired general surgeon who, ten years ago had to give up her hard-earned career because of a skin condition that was to blight her for the next ten years of her life. Christine is now a professional soprano singer. Christine is married to Dougie, a GP and has a daughter who also suffers from eczema.

“As a surgeon eczema blighted my general working days because it was on my hands and sometimes I found my hands were so painful that I couldn’t stand to scrub them or disinfect them ready for surgery.”

“Over time I also developed an allergy to latex so I couldn’t even wear normal surgical gloves but had to wear special non-latex versions. As if being a female surgeon wasn’t hard enough (we generally had to work twice as hard as the chaps) but having eczema made my life even harder. But I was determined, after all I had worked very hard to get where I was, and I coped just about.”

“However ten years ago I had a terrible accident when I fell 15 ft off a terrace in our garden and almost died. After months in hospital I recovered from the accident and went back to work. I thought I had won again but in fact I had an even worse nightmare to come.”

“The physical trauma to my body caused by the accident had somehow triggered a much more severe form of eczema which would go on to literally eat the flesh off my hands and arms and practically cripple me in the years following the accident and would eventually mean I had to abandon my career.”

“I began to get horrendous eczema on my arms and it would burn and itch and weep until I felt I couldn’t bear it any more. My arms looked like they had been flailed or blowtorched. My skin felt like it was literally being eaten by my disease. In some places the sores were so deep I felt they must be almost down to the bone. But still I battled on with my surgery, even though sometimes it was utter agony to have to scrub my already cracked raw hands and arms ready for operating.”

“I struggled on trying every treatment under the sun to try and calm the eczema but it just got worse and worse. With my husband being a GP I was able to get the very latest steroids, often those at a higher strength than normal eczema patients were given, but my eczema just continued to get worse until eventually it turned to ulcerations on my legs which became infected. But the end came when my fingers swelled and cracked so much that I could no longer hold a scalpel and eventually I had to admit defeat.”

“By this time I could barely walk let alone stand through an operation and so with the greatest regret I had to leave general surgery. I just couldn’t battle on any longer against the tide of eczema that seemed to be engulfing me. It was the hardest day of my life when I left a profession I had struggled all my life to achieve.”

“Two years ago one of my legs began to turn black because one of the ulcer had gone septic. My husband took me to see a specialist in skin ulcers and she wrapped my legs in cold tar bandages. But they only got worse and we discovered that the bandages had latex in them and so they had to come off. By this time my legs were so infected they wreaked and I could sleep because of the pain and I had to walk with the aide of sticks. I had also lost a lot of the skin off my fingers due to repeated outbreaks on my hands.”

“Determined to beat this condition I tried everything and anything, including acupuncture, dead sea mineral salts and lanolin. Dougie and I, being medically trained, didn’t have much faith in alternative health but I tied it anyway just in case.”

“But last year Dougie was reading the paper and he cut out a small news item on a new treatment for eczema, simply because we now read everything that appeared on eczema. He showed me and we both agreed it sounded pretty unconvincing. It was a new topical treatment made from an extract from a Sri Lankan vine, it was natural but claimed to be more effective than steroids and highly effective at stopping the itch of eczema.”

“Dougie told me to forget it, but in my desperation I decided to order one small pot of the stuff just to try it.”

“It arrived and that night as usual, Dougie applied the latest potion of the moment to my swollen legs. I went to bed feeling deeply sceptical and expected to wake in the night in agony as usual. The next think I knew it was morning. It was the first time I had slept through the night in almost five years. Dougie awoke equally as confused as we were both used to such disturbed nights it felt strange to have slept for a whole night.”

“It wasn’t until Dougie pulled back the sheets that the reality of what had happened really hit me. I could see by the expression on his face that something had happened, but even then I thought it was something awful. ‘My goodness’ he said in a startled tone, they’re not red this morning. ‘They don’t itch either’ I said realising that they didn’t. There was also the absence of the usually disgusting smell that my legs gave off due to the puss that would weep from my wounds overnight.”

“The treatment I had applied the night before had not only stopped the infernal itching but the redness and swelling had reduced by about 40%. We immediately applied tons more of the stuff, and did so every day and night and within three days my ulcers were practically healed over. To say it was amazing is an understatement. My husband could no believe his eyes and I was just elated.”

“Since that day I have applied Cardiospermum Gel to my hands, arms and legs every morning and every evening and I have not really had a bad flare up since and that was over a year ago.”

“I literally went from being hardly able to walk unassisted to being more or less normal. It was noting short or miraculous and as a doctor of medicine I find it hard to comprehend.”

“After leaving general surgery I resumed my passion for singing and was discovered by a music agent. I now sing all over the world as a professional soprano singer but I would never have been able to do what I am today if I had not found a solution for my horrific and debilitating eczema.”

“I still find it hard to believe the effect that the treatment had on my skin but I am living proof of the reality and there is nothing in science that is better proof than that.”

“My husband, who had always been very anti anything alternative, now recommends Cardiospermum Gel to all his patients with eczema, many of who have seen similar results to me.”